Spiritual Discipline, Emotions, and Behavior during the Song Dynasty: Zhu Xi’s and Qisong’s Commentaries on the Zhongyong in Comparative Perspective

The present study proposes a comparative hermeneutics of two Song-dynasty commentaries on the classic Zhongyong. It also puts forward a new Song perspective on this text, a point of view common to both Neo-Confucian and Chan schools, which focuses on emotions and what I call the “interdependent self.” It thus aims to make two complementary contributions: to illustrate the Confucian impact on the thinking of the Chan monk-scholar Qisong, and to provide evidence of Chan influence on the Cheng-Zhu school.